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In this letter organisations representing hauliers, truck leasers, freight forwarders and other logistics and truck industry representatives, along with T&E, express their serious concern about the slowing down of the process to introduce the VECTO tool, which is designed to measure, calculate, report and monitor CO2 emissions and fuel consumption from new heavy-goods vehicles. VECTO is being delayed by parallel legislation in trilogue that would give the Commission power to implement the program - that file is being held up by an issue unrelated to VECTO and trucks.

In a letter to European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, 19 global brands, logistics companies and green organisations, including IKEA, Nestlé, Philips, DB Schenker, Deutsche Post DHL and T&E, have said that fuel efficiency standards for heavy-goods vehicles in Europe would save billions for businesses, lead to cheaper goods, protect the environment and boost energy independence.

Thank you Madam President for the invitation and for organising this very timely and relevant event. I represent Transport & Environment, a Brussels-based environmental group specialising in sustainable transport, with 50 member organisations in 27 countries across this beautiful continent.

In this joint letter, Eurocities, Polis, European Transport Safety Council and Transport & Environment call on the Commission to include ambitious direct vision requirements for lorries in the upcoming revision of the General Safety Regulation (GSR).

In this letter, Europe's hauliers association (IRU), European logistics and forwarding associations (CLECAT, European Transport Board, Nordic Logistics Association), EU vehicle leasing and rental organisation (Leaseurope), European Express Association, Green Freight Europe and T&E urge the European Commission to propose a truck and bus CO2 test (known as VECTO) that is transparent, cost-effective and easy to use for third parties, with simulated results than can be verified through a form of testing for real-world compliance. The signatories of the letter also call on the Commission to propose a test that enables small road transport companies (85% of the fleet) to independently consult and compare different vehicle combinations, CO2, fuel consumption and energy use, where possible online. The new test must “remove market barriers by increasing market transparency and vehicle comparability thus stimulating competition among manufacturers and end-user awareness” as the Commission set out to do in its May 2014 truck CO2 strategy.This page also includes a downloadable discussion paper on confidential input date for VECTO.The Commission has developed a test procedure called VECTO to measure CO2 emissions from new trucks and buses. The VECTO test procedure is a simulation tool that aims to provide truck and buses buyers with accurate fuel consumption information. The details of the test procedure are currently being discussed in a DG GROWTH expert committee and the final legislative proposal is expected in mid-2016.

Ahead of the Communication on the European Energy Union with a forward-looking climate policy, NGOs wrote to the College of the European Commission asking it to pay special attention to the decarbonisation of transport. They ask commissioners to include a comprehensive strategy for electrification of transport as one of their priorities for moving Europe further down the road of climate and energy security and towards reducing its global land foot-print.

Ahead of its discussion on the EU’s key priorities for the next decade, seven stakeholder organisations from industry, transport and cities wrote to the College of the European Commission regarding the creation of a European Energy Union with a forward-looking climate change policy. They called on the commissioners to focus on the transport sector, which represents about a third of the EU’s overall energy consumption and is almost exclusively dependent on imported fossil fuels.

Ahead of trilogue negotiations on the European Commission's lorry weights and dimensions proposal, the International Road Transport Union (IRU), representing hauliers, and Transport & Environment wrote to the Commission, Council and Parliament. In the letter they urge decision-makers to seize a once-in-a-generation opportunity to support and enable a maximisation of lorry fuel efficiency which will reduce emissions, while creating opportunities to further improve safety and driver comfort. They ask the decision-makers to reject a proposed moratorium and not delay such innovations any further.

This letter, by Transport &amp; Environment, Transport for London, the European Cyclists Federation and the European Federation of Road Traffic Victims is about the review of weights and dimensions of lorries and the importance of lorry road safety in that review. T&amp;E believes that improvements to lorry cab design, e.g. to eliminate blind spots both to the front and to the side and improve crash performance and pedestrian protection, have an enormous potential to make European roads a safer place.

The revision of the Tachograph Regulation (Council Regulation (EEC) No. 3921/85 on recording equipment in road transport), which was launched in 2011, seeks to “improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the tachograph system” and to “update the current legislation so as to make full use of new technological opportunities”.As part of the revision process, the European Parliament agreed in its first reading to mandate weight sensors on new trucks as part of the future ‘smart’ tachograph.In this joint statement, the ETF and T&E urge EU policy makers to follow the position adopted by the European Parliament and to make weight sensors mandatory on new trucks and trailers concomitantly with the introduction of the smart tachograph in the sector.